


and the valley doesn't differ from the kitchen sink

by 74217



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Character Development, Lesbiannie Edison!!, Multi, Substance Abuse, first chapter is canon compliant-ish, in 2020?, is there any audience for this?, troy is gay too obviously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22399897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/74217/pseuds/74217
Summary: Sure, this wasn’t what Annie worked for. She never planned on going to an open admissions school and living in an apartment with perpetually sticky walls and windows that didn’t lock. Sure, she was alone, again, more than ever, with frequent NA meetings serving as her only support system, but that was okay. She was okay, she could do this. This was what she had.She would go to City College and she would make the most of it, wring every drop of enjoyment and opportunity out of the community college experience, and it would be rewarding. From there on out, she would do everything right.
Relationships: Annie Edison & Britta Perry, Annie Edison & Troy Barnes, Annie Edison/OFC(s), Annie Edison/OMC(s), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir, one-sided Annie Edison/Britta Perry
Comments: 11
Kudos: 25





	and the valley doesn't differ from the kitchen sink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> high school.

Annie Edison didn’t go to her either of her proms. 

Senior year was complicated. 

Junior year, she spent the night in her bedroom with coffee and a pint of cherry garcia, swimming in a mass of AP calc notes and the buzz of a white noise machine. She rehearsed what she would say to Kirsten on Monday, at 1:27, between lunch and english, writing down her options on purple sticky notes and arranging them on her mirror. Hey, Kirsten, are you free after school today? I have a small favor to ask you. Kirsten! I was just thinking the other day that we haven’t talked in so long. How are you? Kirsten. Hi. What’s up? So, I’ve been studying for finals, and I’m having trouble concentrating, and I used to be able to just get pills from by brother, but his doctor decided he doesn’t need them anymore. I used to get them from my camp friend, her name is Charlotte, you wouldn’t know her, she lives in La Junta, but her mom found out and now she makes her take them in front of her every morning. My dealer is Mormon now. I know you don’t sell them or anything, I don’t want you to think I’m being presumptuous, it’s just that you’re the only person I could think of to ask about this. Hey, Kirsten, so, I lied when I said that I took Adderall too and was, like, super into drugs and stuff, and I know telling you that is probably not going to help me out in this situation, but I thought it was best to be honest. I really, really need a favor. Hey, Kirsten. I know I said I wouldn’t try to bring up the bathroom thing again, but as you know, finals are fast approaching, and I’m in kind of a bind, and you’re the only person I know who can help me out. If you have a source that you could introduce me to, I would greatly appreciate it. Really appreciate it? Totally love that. Thanks. Hey, Kirsten. I know you were probably being sarcastic when you said you “owed me one,” but, frankly, I think you do, and I’m here to cash it in. Etcetera. 

The papers branched out from the center of the mirror and ended up covering enough of it to sufficiently obscure the view of Annie’s room. When she caught glances of herself, she looked tired. Caffeine and five hours of sleep was not doing the trick. She used a red expo marker to connect the papers like string—that part was mostly for fun—and when she was done, she cut up the evidence into tiny pieces before she threw it away.

On Monday, Kirsten agreed to give Annie the number of some sophomore she knew, and on Wednesday, Annie met Gabriel (he doesn’t like Gabe) outside Kay’s Pizza. She arrived twelve minutes early and waited at a small metal table, tapping her fingers on the foggy lid of her sprite. They made the transaction in the back seat of Annie’s mom’s car, parked in a middle spot in the sparse back parking lot. Annie thought it was less conspicuous than the front of the building, and Gabriel reluctantly complied. 

She considered Adderall a tool. It helped a lot, she felt good, right—as smart and competent as she knew she was supposed to be. She felt it in her chest, her fingers, and in her humming skull. She took a pill a day and breezed through finals, and it was nice to spend nine days in a world that was brighter and more precise. 

The end of the year came, as always, with a rush of relief at getting to be away from that building and those people for ten whole weeks. 

Adderall, it turned out, was useful in the summer, too. It helped her be her best self and made it easy breezy to spend sixteen days co-leading crafts and nature walks and stuff like that for elementary schoolers at the community center daycare, which Annie did mostly because that was the type of thing that looked good on college applications and resumes, and she might even get some good college essay material out of it, but also because she liked it. Those were the same reasons she did lifeguarding and leadership camp. Well, the first two. 

Everything Annie did that summer, everything that mattered, she took Adderall for. It was better. There were no down sides. When her grand, perspective-altering college essay moment came, she would be able to look back on it and know she was at her height, alert and observant, and her writing would be that much more insightful for it. 

It was the best and quickest summer of Annie’s post-elementary school career. When she needed to, she texted Gabriel and he got her restocked. He always responded with smiling emoticons, which Annie found slightly charming but mostly unprofessional. She was high most of the time, although she didn’t use that word.

She decided to let it become a habit. That was the word she used mentally, and never preceded by drug. Just a regular, non-scary habit, a thing she did every day, instead of in disorganized chunks. Like brushing her teeth. 

It made more sense than any other system. She even convinced herself that a monthly expense might be good preparation for adulthood. And this way, she wouldn’t have to risk a comedown, like the one that had knocked the life out of her for three days after her time at the community center ended, leaving her stewing sleepless and exhausted in her room wondering what she did wrong to set it off. She would need it for school, anyway. Might as well get used to the schedule. 

Annie’s senior year began, and she and Gabriel developed a routine: they met at Kay’s on the first Monday of the month. 

He seemed to actually enjoy it. She wasn’t sure if or if it was the money or the meager attention from a senior girl, or maybe it wasn’t genuine at all, but he always looked glad to see Annie. She found that weird. 

Annie found herself on the receiving end of awkward hallway smiles from Gabriel. He would sense her in a crowd of people the same way she did with Troy Barnes. He’d be there at her locker or the vending machine or somewhere else and confirm for the second time that they were still meeting at Kay’s that Thursday (Annie insisted that school was too risky and Gabriel never complained) and try to move their rapport past small talk. They came down the gym-and-science hallway at the same time and he caught up with her, reliably. She learned his routes like she learned Kirsten’s in the days before she asked her for that favor, except it took him more time. It was tedious, but very flattering. Annie didn’t even want to admit to herself how good it felt to have the luxury of being annoyed by someone else’s adoration. 

She wondered if that was what Troy’s life was like, if he felt giddy and loved to the point of discomfort, rolling his eyes as he picked off the hangers-on. She wondered if that was satisfying for him.

Troy never smiled back at her in the halls. Usually, it was just because he wasn’t looking. He was with people all the time. His posse, or cult, or whatever. 

She considered what Gabriel would have to do or become to get her to take a sincere interest in him. 

Annie ran into Kirsten in the bathroom, again. This time, the one with two broken sinks. Annie used it to cry sometimes, because the broken sinks meant it was usually empty, but this time it was just for regular reasons. Kirsten was leaning forward almost enough to fog up the mirror, applying mascara in meticulous, bathroom-break-extending strokes. Annie decided to talk to her. 

“Hey, do you have Ms. Akins for english?”

“Yeah.”

“Lucky. Nieves-Tate is killing us.” Annie liked Mrs. Nieves-Tate, but she needed something to relate with. She had a rant about a research essay prepared, half made up and half stolen from the one she overheard in the library, but she decided to save it. 

“Okay.” Maybe she should just run instead, that was probably a good idea. And never speak again. 

“I think Gabriel likes me,” she said, against her own will. 

“Huh.” Attention gotten. 

“What do you think? About that,” she specified.

“I don’t know.” 

“It’s kind of flattering, I guess, if he does.” 

Kirsten finished her eyelashes and shifted slightly to face Annie, looking at her with patience, almost. “It isn’t, really, he’s gross. He probably likes you because you have boobs, and you're older, and you’re nice to him.” She paused. “I’m not saying that to be a bitch, he’s weird. You shouldn’t indulge it.” The look persists. Annie tries to force herself to feel bothered and condescended to. 

“You hang out with him. If he really only likes me because I’m a senior, with breasts, I don’t see how it’s any different for you.”

“I don’t hang out with him, I just talk to him sometimes.” Annie was a little shaky on what the line was between friends and something less. “I just, like, he gets me Adderall and I sit with him in algebra.” Annie wanted to ask Kirsten why she was still in algebra, but she held her tongue. 

She did nothing about the Gabriel situation—she didn’t want a friend and she also didn’t want to not have Adderall, so everything stayed exactly the same. She didn’t want a boyfriend, either, which she thought was what Gabriel was hoping for, unless that boy was a perfect charming football player. 

That wasn’t going to happen, but she could fantasize. She dreamt—literally, one night—of being offered Troy’s letter jacket. It would be sweet, classic, like a scene from a movie, and that was how she described the way she felt about him to herself. Theirs would be a time-honored tale of unlikely love. 

(It was less nice in the actual dream; they were on the stairs of what was supposed to be her dead uncle’s house, and her hands didn’t look like her hands.)

She mentioned it to Kirsten one day, in the cafeteria before a presentation about preparing for college, and she laughed. You’re like the sixth person I know who’s in love with him. Annie wasn’t trying to be original. If Troy Barnes happened to be both the most predictable and the most useless choice, well. She couldn’t help how she felt. 

It would take a miracle for him to notice her this late in the game. 

After winter break, Annie’s grades and emotional state finally plateaued. It was a little disappointing. Then, things got a bit shaky. She wasn’t sure why. Everything, it seemed, was in jeopardy, all the time: her CSU scholarship, the sweet spot of only limited discomfort in all two of her somewhat significant peer relationships, the ground beneath her feet when she walked really fast. She was dangerously close to an 89 in physics, and if she didn’t cram herself full of everything they ever covered, who knew what kind of hit she could take. Annie texted Gabriel, who rejected their usual plan and asked if she wanted to maybe hang out at that frozen yogurt place. She met him, got her now slightly heavier than usual ziplock baggie, and told him she had to get going. 

The highlight of every day was going to sleep. 

Annie had known Logan for years before she decided to ask him out, so it wasn’t a rash decision. They had hung out once before, in junior year, helping Mr. Deal take her posters down, and by her standards it was fun. Logan was nice, smart, and didn’t make Annie feel like something was being anticipated from her. He was the treasurer on the student council with her. He was also one of five members in the natural science club, which Annie didn’t have time for even though it was pretty informal, but meant they had shared interests. 

So they saw Juno together. Annie would have never had the guts, or even the thought, to do that six months ago, but Adderall had made her more confident. Now she was someone with three significant peer relationships. 

Logan’s robotics club and Annie’s everything else were such massive timesucks that they continued to mostly see each other in school and school-related activities, only now that was punctuated by study dates and what she assumed was mediocre kissing. Annie couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be as wet and uncomfortable as it was or if they were just bad at it. She tried taking off her glasses a few times, but they weren’t the problem. It was probably her braces. Annie was the only upperclassman who still had them. They were supposed to be gone by her senior year, but apparently Annie’s teeth were “uncooperative.” Logan’s teeth were perfect. 

Annie stopped eating lunch in the biography section of the library and joined Logan and his friends at their table in the cafeteria. She buried the shame she felt over Logan knowing about that with a silver smile so big that one time it made her jaw crackle, that was supposed to say congratulations on earning my presence but definitely looked and felt more like thank you. She glowed there, now that she had the power to insert herself into a group. (Most of the way—one time Charlie saw her at Safeway and didn’t acknowledge her, but she let that go.) Sometimes Logan wasn’t there because he had work to do for robotics, and she still sat there and was able to edge into the conversation. She got people to laugh. It was fantastic. She was funny and charming now, and she had friends—acquaintances—who would sometimes listen to what she thought about the historical accuracy of books she read. She loved Logan. 

When Annie started taking three pills a day, she sold some old clothes to a consignment store, and her mom asked her if cheerleading was helping with her weight loss. It was Adderall that was helping, and Annie couldn’t tell if she was trying to bond with or provoke her, so she smiled and nodded and went to her room. 

“I don’t know if this is rude to ask,” Kirsten said to her in art two, while she stared at a blank canvas, thinking, “but are you doing alright?”

“Yes?” Annie replied. 

“Okay, I saw you, like, tearing at your seat during the assembly.”

“The hole was already there. Why do you care how I’m doing, suddenly?”

“I just wanted to make sure, I don’t know.” Kirsten looked hurt by this, like Annie crossed a line in acknowledging her theatrical disregard for most things. Annie made her best condescendingly reassuring face. She was cool, too. She could make faces.

“I’m great.” Kirsten nodded. 

“Cool.”

“I have a boyfriend now, actually. I’m dating Logan,” She said through a smile. 

Kirsten did an intentionally-not-concealed snort-laugh. “I thought he was gay.”

Annie knew she would say that. 

Come March, Gabriel’s stock of half finished pill bottles ran out and Annie had to wait two weeks until his next refill, when she needed it more than ever. She couldn’t believe how little time that had taken. Without it, she felt awful. She had to feel the grotesque emotions that had built up inside her under many layers of chipper and proactive. The pile of old laundry in her brothers room that she had impulsively washed and ironed for him two days earlier (pre-wash and iron) seemed like an apt metaphor. 

Annie was economical with her remaining twelve, until she wasn’t, chugging the last four in parts of two before and after her last pre-final world history exam. Then she suffered for a week. And then she was back. 

Once she felt like herself again, Annie was in the mood to knock off a milestone. 

She had always thought that losing her virginity would be beautiful, emotional, perfect (she had her underwear and pre-event outfit picked out, down to the nail polish), and she knew deep down, going into it, that Logan wouldn’t be that. He would be fine. He would do his best, and so would she, but they had never been that good at the physical part of their relationship. But she liked him, and she wanted to get it done and over with.

Logan told her he wanted to when they were at her house watching Ken Burns’ The Civil War, and they made plans for the long weekend. Annie knew she would never want to just get it over with more than she did right then.

Before she decided to let go of her illusions about sex, she had imagined it many times, always with some faceless man. Man was the wrong word, but so was boy. And not faceless, exactly, she just didn’t know or care what he looked like. His features pulsed and walked around over his face and she didn’t really pay attention. She was more focused on the ambient lighting and making her tenth identical list of places she would need to shave and the order in which she would do them. He was never her crush of the year, although she tried that once. It felt gross and dumb, like some childish fantasy, but creepy. They were supposed to be in love, and he didn’t even like her yet, he never did, no matter who it was. Now she had Logan, and it was different. Good different. The idea made her feel a lot more now. 

Annie was relieved when it was over, which was quickly, but felt like a while. She couldn’t tell if it was bad or not, but it wasn’t good. She hoped it was just like the kissing, everyone leaving out the details that would make it sound uncomfortable and then you get used to it, but she didn’t test the theory. Annie told him it wasn’t a big deal. 

Logan broke up with her before she could, and she silently went back to library lunches.

Gabriel didn’t “have any right now” again. Annie took her last two pills. It would be two and a half weeks before Gabriel would have more, but she had a checkup after school with her pediatrician who she still saw and she needed to be normal. The tall, shiny chair made her feel like a child, even though she was there by herself. Waiting for Dr. Valenzuela to come back into the room, she sat there with her legs dangling, crossing them in different ways. She thought about how tired and depressed she was going to be ten hours from then. It wouldn’t even be the weekend. She’d have gym, which was bad enough on its own, with the running and the sweat and the buzzer and the changing in front of other people. about stole a prescription pad. When she got home, she panicked. Her body constricted and cut off her breaths. Cold and sticky with sweat and hunched over gripping the footboard of her bed, after the waves of panic have slowed significantly, Annie came to the conclusion that her judgement might be impaired.

She decided that, if she had a problem, she could handle it by herself. Anyway, she had to because it wasn’t like there was anyone she could talk to. Certainly not an adult. She thought about calling her bubbe in Denver, or her dad, even, but they would still be mad and she would scare them and they would tell her mom. What else were they supposed to do? 

Sneak her off to therapy and say they’re spending quality time together? 

Annie hid it under her mattress. She googled charges for stealing a prescription pad and laid awake in her bed stunned with fear that she was caught. The next day while her mom was at work, she burned it in the sink, and panicked all over again when the smoke detector went off. 

Annie considered the situation more, and every thought she had from there on only made it feel more dire—like she was being threatened by herself. She couldn’t deal with it on her own. She couldn’t deal with anything on her own. It was disgusting to realize this, to feel herself swing back and forth between independence to the point of isolation, and fear of being left alone. She didn’t trust anyone, but she didn’t trust herself, either. She tried to not think about the fact that she didn’t like being alive. 

It wasn’t like she hated her mom or anything. She wasn’t some delusional monster, she just had high hopes for Annie, which, she kept reminding herself, were grounded in love for and belief in her. The future she had in mind probably didn’t include getting hooked on amphetamines, and that meant there was a good chance she would be eager to help her with this. 

She decided to tell her after dinner on Thursday. Leave it to Annie to throw an intervention for herself; she made that joke once, in her head, and the word made her skin crawl. She put it on the no-no list of things that couldn’t be formally vocalized even within the confines of her own head. She took thirteen deep, jagged breaths before she broached the subject. 

She felt like she was about to bite a piece of her tongue off. 

It went over poorly. 

Annie used the words dangerous situation and that was all she said that she remembered, even though she had practiced it in her head and in the mirror. Her mom told her that she was eighteen and things were not as bad as she thought they were. She said things in this very general way, like Annie had come to her to talk about life and the human condition and how incredibly hard it was to be a high schooler. If Annie really needed the kind of help she said she did, she would have to wait until after she graduated. She has a month between then and orientation. 

She would deal with this herself. The queasy, pre-bandaid-rip feeling Annie had had since she decided to tell her mom was only amplified, and she would have killed to be physically capable of sleeping it off. 

The next night, Anthony came to her room and said Mom needed her. 

“Tell her I’m coming,” Annie said from the end of her bed, smushed in the corner of the wall with Winesburg, Ohio and chewing off the white parts of her thumb nail. It came out fast and annoyed. 

“Why do you hate her so much?” he asked, like she was the one being a bitch in this situation. She wondered what Mom told him about what was happening. Probably something vague and unflattering. 

“Why don’t you shut up?” she retorted. Oops. 

At that, Anthony flipped her off, a gesture he’d been growing fond of, and left without closing her door. Annie didn’t like her door open. She came out and washed dishes. 

-

Michelle was allowed to be there and, by extension, so was Annie. But that didn’t mean she was supposed to be there, she knew she wasn’t. It felt wrong. Even hovering in the range of her four foot self-imposed leash to Michelle, with all conceivable homework as done as it could possibly be, she still wasn’t invited. 

Annie didn’t realize how uncomfortable a real party would be. She didn’t enjoy being around drunk people. All the other kids who didn’t go anywhere for spring break were hooting and giggling and chugging beer in a house that was too small for that many people. She could hear the guy behind her breathing. It had to be a fire hazard. The kitchen was the worst, but Michelle liked to be by the drinks and have a counter to sit on. It was smooth and cold. Annie made note of the window behind them. 

Michelle was Annie’s friend junior year, before she moved back to Texas with her dad; her real, actual friend, whose house she sometimes went to after school, who hadn’t made her do this before. 

Annie pretended to sip beer from a shiny solo cup and felt like she was about five seconds away from finding herself in the middle of a two and a half star high school sex comedy, in which her character would be even more hilariously out of place than she was already, standing by the sink, arms crossed in her baby pink cardigan, limbs contorted to make her feel smaller and a long, curly mass of hair spreading out from her shoulders and ruining the facade. Annie wouldn’t know fun if someone broke it over her head and made her clean up the pieces. 

So she stood there and kept not having fun and listened to Michelle, also not having fun, also holding a red solo cup that was about as half-full as it had been twenty minutes ago, talk about how her sister kept stealing her clothes. Annie relished the comfort zone of the space between her and Michelle. She admired, like really actually admired, Michelle’s willingness to talk impassively about things they both knew weren’t interesting just to keep the words flowing. They were both aware of it, so it felt like and inside joke. She liked the sound of her voice. She liked the unspoken bond of boredom; it stung. 

Fifteen feet away, Troy Barnes walked over to the girl leaning on Thomas’ mom’s fancy granite kitchen island and smiled his cute gorgeous smile at her. The girl was Monica, who once poured a whole bottle of light blue Gatorade into Annie’s open backpack. She tracked ants onto the bus. Michelle kept talking and Annie felt her scanning the room for something interesting. Her sister would be so jealous that she was there, at a real party, but of course she could never tell her because she would just tell their mom. But you get that, right Annie? Troy Barnes and Monica Gatorade were making out against the kitchen island. Michelle’s voice sounded low and smooth when she said the word tomorrow. Monica’s hands were on Troy’s shoulders and his hands were on her back, and in her stupid, fake red hair. It was fascinating. The edge of the counter dug into Monica’s lower back and Annie wondered if it was as uncomfortable as it looked, and if it was worth it. Michelle was wondering how carpets were made. Troy Barnes was cool. Monica was mean and pretty. He kissed her and pushed up the fabric of her tank top and he looked like he was very good at it. Annie could see the appeal of doing that before a crowd of her peers. Annie would do it for the praise. Michelle refilled her now empty cup. Monica pulled away and smiled for a brief second. She would tell all her friends about this in the car or on the phone or when they got back from Florida or wherever. Annie could see it, gloating, like she would do. Even the ones that went to Key West would be jealous of her, and they would know about the things he said that Annie didn’t, like the thing Troy said that made Monica giggle and bite her tongue. She didn’t appreciate what she was getting. 

Michelle waved around a weird spiraly silver kitchen tool and asked Annie what she thought it was for. Annie didn’t know. 

Troy and Monica were having fun, because they were fun. It made her the same kind of queasy she got when Kiera Phillips got a better grade than her on their narrative essay, which she knew she did because she craned her neck to look. The unmistakable pang of jealousy: that was how she knew she liked him. 

-

Nine months after Monica, Annie found her now-love of/benevolent obsession with Troy to be surprisingly useless in holding her back from her little fit, as her mom called it. She’d been talking mostly to herself for the past… she wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. She didn’t check the clock. She should have. 

Nobody there would appreciate her insights anyway. Kirsten had disappeared to some bathroom with Haircut Ben. Gabriel was in the kitchen talking to some of the soccer guys, probably saying something he thought was super smart. Someone offered her a beer, which she took and held and discreetly abandoned on a bookcase, because she didn’t need to get drunk. She wasn’t sober anyway. And she was only there for superlatives. 

Most popular, best smile, of course. Class heartthrob, who was she to object? Most unique made her scoff. Most likely to succeed crossed a line. What emotional stability had Troy Barnes sacrifices to get where he was, how many times was he willing to do it again? Where the hell was he going? Her fifth pill of the night had just started kicking it, and that was all she needed. Annie didn’t think, she just did. She could do that now. 

She yelled, actually yelled, at Troy Barnes, and, really, at everyone watching. Everyone, in general. And she meant everything she said. It felt right to say it, to finally be really mad. The energy in her was fiery and cathartic, long awaited. Someone deserved to get yelled at by her. Her six-or-however-many pills had gone to perfect use. She was finally making everyone feel more ashamed than she did. 

She wasn’t used to having so many eyes and drunk half-smiles fixed on her. Confused eyes trying to figure out what they missed. They were horrified, but not really. For everyone but her this was a spectacle, it was fun, watching her crash and burn and flail about, unrehearsed and frantic. She could perceive the walls around her, now. They were quiet, but she could feel their thoughts, hear them buzzing with her perfect perception. Kirsten was out of the bathroom and gawking at her. Annie decided she had more energy than the room could contain. 

She didn’t feel it until a good 15 seconds—or a minute, or something like that—after what she did had first registered. She navigated out of a strange jungle of a backyard and ran a block down the street. At first, she felt the ache in her knees from the jump over the fence more than she felt the cuts in her skin. 

Annie didn’t think she had been in that neighborhood before that night. All the houses looked the same: big squares with fake looking rock on the sides and columns that didn’t match the windows. She wanted to fix them but she didn’t know how, and then she threw up. Right near a gutter, luckily, no memento for someone to deal with it in the morning. Wiping the vomit from the corners of her mouth stung her skin badly. Her phone buzzed. Logan was asking if she was alright. She hadn’t seen him there. 

Torn between many urges, Annie used all the willpower she had and call her ride. 

When he got there, she turned her phone off, then thanked Gabriel profusely for taking her to urgent care. It was cold and squeaky and the lights were bright, and the air felt dry and minty. He insisted on staying and Annie didn’t mind. 

Supported by Maya, who seemed to be leaning against him more than actually carrying weight, and a boy—PJ? Troy Barnes hobbled in, wincing, thirty-four minutes after the time that Annie had previously set as the latest possible time her name would be called. They lowered him into a crunchy plastic chair on the other side of the room and Maya went to talk to the lady at the front desk. PJ said something to Troy and laughed, loudly. It reverberated through the building and became tinny. Maya walked back after a couple of minutes and sat down at Troy’s other side, and looked like she, too, had insisted on being there. She said her name in a swirly, taunting, sing-song voice—A-annieee—and asked her what was up? What did she think their wait was gonna be? 

Annie shouted a little circle of a shout, quick. A splash. She didn’t say words, and decided after the fact that that had been intentional. The skinny blond man in the seat by the door told them to please save it for homeroom. PJ laughed again, performatively, and Troy said shut up, man, tired and flat, to the guy by the door, or maybe to PJ. 

Annie didn’t look at them again; she took out her stress on a stray hair, strung between her hands like cat’s cradle, making indents and turning her skin yellow and pink. She dragged it between her nails and it curled tighter into itself. Gabriel watched her doing it and didn’t say anything, but he looked at her like he felt sorry for her now, which was stupid, because she was older than him, and she got a 1560 on the SAT, and if she was cooler and prettier she bet she could do weird shit like pull on her hair and mostly get away with it. He didn’t look at her like that when he stopped selling her Adderall in baggies and just gave her the whole bottle, he didn’t look at her like that when she flopped into the backseat of his shitty teal Toyota with her face all manic and her flesh all excavated. Annie gabe up and bit her lip and peeled the split ends apart. 

She needed to leave Greendale. 

Annie stayed up the rest of the night, all two remaining hours of it, alone in her room, too busy to watch the stupid sunrise and grateful she hadn’t woken her mom. She heard the front door latch below her; first time, Mom; second time, Anthony. Before eight a.m., she reorganized her room, for the third time since November, did a week of physics homework, and cleaned the bathroom so thoroughly she would eat off any surface in it. She threw away old sponges and expired antiseptics and took some of her brother’s also-expired prescription strength Tylenol, left over from when he got a tooth pulled. Then she felt herself getting sleepy-tired, which was significant, she thought, because she didn’t usually feel that anymore. Not so strongly. The bottle was empty; she gave in. 

It must have been late when she woke up, because her mom was home, which Annie knew because she was in her room, body angled like it was being jabbed at her, and the walls were a soft orange-pink again. Mom said something about holding her liquor and causing people pain for her own entertainment and getting blood on the quilt that her bubbe made. Annie didn’t usually sleep with it. It felt nice. 

There was a lot more to it; concern, too, definitely, somewhere, but Annie wasn’t really listening. She buried herself in the sweet, stale cheek of her pillow. Her body was too heavy to move.

**Author's Note:**

> idk when this will be updated but i can promise it only gets less miserable from here


End file.
